Four and Twenty Blackbirds
by MaidenInTheMoon
Summary: Drabbles! #1 or ?: Acquiescence - Curious circumstances lead to a major life decision on Sakura and Kakashi's parts


Title: Acquiescence

Word Count: 1270

* * *

Kakashi had to admit that the situation was, if nothing else, vaguely amusing. He could so easily imagine how elated the twelve-year-old Sakura would have been by the circumstances that had incited this outrageous outcome.

The grandson of the Tsuchikage had fallen in love with her over the course of a three-month diplomatic trip to the outlying countries. The boy was by no means unsuitable for Sakura. He was kind, attractive, and a member of one of the most prized clans in the ninja world. In an effort to secure a stronger peace with the nation that had, throughout the years, proven itself the most venomous to the leaf, Tsunade had arranged a marriage for her apprentice.

For weeks Sakura had said nothing. People would congratulate her in the streets, and she would give but a meek smile and a whispered thanks. Naruto and Lee had both declared themselves heartbroken to her face, but even their comedic antics did little to crack the girl's stoic demeanor. It wasn't until exactly two weeks before she was set to be shipped to the Earth country that a very drunk and very, very angry Sakura had stormed into the Yamanaka flower shop.

"Medieval, Unconcerned for my well-being, against everything I stand for . . . " had been some choice excerpts Ino eventually shared with the jounin council when it was reported that Sakura had promptly gone missing. Instead of declaring a crisis and releasing the hunter-nin, Tsunade had relegated the duty of bringing the girl back to the most obvious choice, the tracker ninja who just so happened to be the young runaway's former sensei.

Those were the series of events that led Kakashi to his current predicament.

"You have to come down sometime or I will just come up and get you," Kakashi yelled to the girl sitting twenty feet up on the fat branch of an old oak tree.

"I am _never_ going to go through with it; you will have to kill me first, and I mean it!"

"I don't suppose a compromise would work? What if you got to spend half your year in Konoha?" The silver-haired ninja scratched the back of his head as he said this, wondering if the negotiation lines Tsunade had instructed him to use would be of any service.

The girl turned red and climbed further up into the tree. "This is not an issue up for debate. This is _my_ life!" she yelled as a few displaced leaves and small branches fell towards Kakashi.

"Shinobi rule number 87, Sakura. 'One's duty to the country always outweighs one's personal interests."

"Don't you think I know that?" she snarled down towards him. "Why do you think I'm out here living like a criminal? Sasuke defects from Konoha, and they send the cavalry to go get him, but I run away and they send _you_ to bring me back like I'm some petulant child."

Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow.

"You were planning on becoming a missing-nin?"

There was a moment of silence as a couple squirrels ran up the side of the tree towards where Sakura sat.

"What part of running away with no notice doesn't scream of missing-nin?" Sakura sneared. "I would rather be hunted down, stabbed in the gut and have my body be eaten by crows than marry a stranger and move to a foreign country. I've been out here for three weeks, and everyday I expect them to find me and finish me. I am prepared to die rather than become a political puppet." Despite the dramatic macabre of her words, Sakura's voice remained perfectly calm as she spoke.

Kakashi looked around, as though making sure there was no one creeping about to hear his next statement. He had already known coming into the chase what the girl's thought process had been, but he still could not believe he was about to play his ace.

The man hesitated a few moments longer, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a low sigh before he spoke.

"There is one way we could sort this out that doesn't involve you dying."

Up in the tree Sakura narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "I'm listening."

"Well, you can't be shipped off to marry if you are . . . already married."

Sakura let out a dark laugh. "You've been instructed to bring me back in chakra suppressing chains. I can sense them in your backpack. If you think that once you get me through the gates Tsunade is going to give me enough time and space to find Naruto or Lee and propose marriage then you're dreaming!"

Kakashi forced a cough.

"Yes, I very much doubt you will be able to walk around without four ANBU following you everywhere, but I never said you had to wait until you got back to do it."

A look of confusion crossed Sakura's face before it slowly morphed into one of complete shock.

"You. Are. Kidding."

He looked up at her with an earnest look. "Sakura, I surely don't want to see you sent away from Konoha against your will, and I especially don't want you to wind up killed by your own friends who are hunters. This arrangement obviously doesn't have to last very long, a few years at most until this fiasco blows over."

"Years?" choked out Sakura.

"Yes, years." answered Kakashi quite nonchalantly.

Another moment of silence passed between the two of them, one that felt like an eternity in Sakura's imploding brain.

Finally, when Sakura had decided that Kakashi was going to rescind his offer and just tackle her out of the tree if she waited any longer, the girl let out a weak response.

"Where?"

"The mayor of the town 5 kilometers west of here owes me a favor from when I saved his daughter from drowning in their well. He'll happily proceed over the ceremony and sign the marriage license."

Sakura's eyes widened. "You chased me across half the country just so we would land precisely here and you could propose marriage?"

She suspected there was something of a cocky smile under that mask at the moment. "If I wanted to just knock you out and drag your sorry excuse of a missing-nin self back to Tsunade I could have done so days ago."

Sakura imagined she would have normally been outraged by his insult, but all things considered he was still in the middle of doing her a huge favor . . . sort of.

The girl took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and jumped from the tree.

Now that he was right in front of her, she could clearly see the outline of that cocky smile from beneath the fabric of his mask.

"You're sure about this?" She asked, the worry now readily apparent in her voice.

He examined her face and her worried eyes before sighing again. "Having you as my wife for a short while is much more agreeable than having you as my dead student for the rest of my life. I don't let my comrades die, and you know that."

The girl looked down at the ground and huffed. "And I guess being married to Kakashi-sensei is less terrible than being killed by Shino and the rest of his hunters."

"If it will make you feel better . . ." he began as he tapped her chin to get her to look up.

"You should be able to see your husband's face whenever you want."

He was beautiful enough that Sakura imagined that the marriage just might last.


End file.
